Hot Ticket: Monotonix @ Comet Ping Pong, 2/4/11

If you’re looking for a “unique” experience on Friday night, you can’t do much better than seeing Israeli garage-rockers Monotonix at Comet. Their debut album was a well-received collection of fuzzy riffs and some barely intelligible shouting. If you like Monotonix but you haven’t seen them live yet, you are a fool. Their music is just background noise for the performance art of their singer Ami Shalev. He jumps off drum sets, asks people to throw garbage at him, and generally causes a ruckus. This man is a tank, taking abuse from the audience (and himself) in show after show. He’s the embodiment of rock ‘n roll excess.

After getting banned from every club in their hometown of Tel Aviv, Monotonix has been touring the world almost nonstop since their debut 4 years ago. Right now, they’re touring in support of their new album “Not Yet”. Oh, and Ami recently broke his arm at a show in Florida (I’m shocked that this is his first show-stopping injury), but I can’t imagine this group turning down their intensity for a stupid reason like that. Comet should be the perfect venue to see these guys, as they’ll be right there on the floor with the audience.

The openers Federation X and Pujol from Nashville bring more garage-rock flavor to the bill. Monotonix probably invited them just to have more people to help clean up after their set.